The above image is from bedouinweaving.com.

Just finished the first draft of a story on a Charlottesville, Virginia, woman who is helping Negev Bedouin Women market their traditional, hand-woven rugs in this country–and not as a money-making endeavor for herself.

Political realities forced the Bedouin to end their traditional nomadic life in the middle of the last century. The Negev Bedouin’s settled in villages and towns as the poorest of the poor. The men took factory jobs, but the women–once integral to herding, harvesting, weaving, and home-keeping were left without anything useful to do or any way to make money.

Prue Thorner, the…

So, finally, here I am in the waiting room of the Ear, Nose and Throat Doctor. I have been waiting for this appointment for 10 weeks! I have a lump in my face, somewhere around where my gums, my bicuspids and sinus cavity all get connected together and about 3

months ago, they all started a war and the right side of my mouth became the battlefield. After a series of two antibiotics, sinus x-rays, a trip to the Mengele Dental Clinic, and enough nasal spray to keep a herd of elephants breathin’ free and easy for a lifetime, I was…

Each week, I get scores of letters and emails pleading for help. Usually they are framed by circumstances and conditions intended to explain or otherwise mitigate reality’s harsh truth. While there are a lot of reasons why people get in trouble when they get high, there is only one reason they keep getting high despite those consequences. They’re addicted to alcohol or other drugs.

Only infrequently do I receive a short and to-the-point inquiry from a person in trouble who already knows they need help and isn’t looking for an easier, softer way to find it. Here’s one:

Dear Mr. Moyers: I…

“It’s different for me. I’m not really an addict/alcoholic. I’m not like those people at all. I’m just having some problems.”

How many times have I said that? Said that and believed it. I guess I’m not unique on that point, either. I work with lots of addicts and alcoholics who tell me the same thing. None of us really thought that it was really possible for us to be addicts or alcoholics.

I had long since admitted that crystal meth was a problem for me. I did crystal meth and terrible things happened. Some thing or situation would arise and I’d…

  Charlie rescued these from an old house that was being emptied way back when I first knew him. Wherever we’ve lived, they’ve always gotten the place of honor in our gardens. Whenever the garden gods get planted and flowered, that place feels like home.

I love their peaceful faces and the way they seem to relate to each other. They are separate, but they are so obviously interconnected. Just the way I want to be with the people I care about.

by Brenda Iliff

reviewed by Ginger Bauler

Brenda Iliff, the Director of the Hazelden Women’s Recovery Center has written a straightforward, direct yet sensitive book on issues relating specifically to women in recovery. While the tenets of the 12 step program are a solid foundation for many who choose that path, the language, written 70 years ago, reflects a period when women were not considered (or rarely considered) to be part of the community of “men” who were afflicted with the disease of Alcoholism. Times have certainly changed and I have found that often women are offended at their lack of inclusion…

By Dave Breslin

Sitting in an open field,

nice weather, feeling content.

Not very much is bothering me now,

thoughts are fairly comfortable in my head.

Thinking back on what I’ve done,

seen, with whom and how.

I realize I might be forever scarred

or then again, blessed somehow.

Maybe this constant pondering mind

is insanity, maybe genius.

Each day’s the same in this life,

what’s left that I have seen in it?

I’ve been through terror, hell, sin and hate,

whichever you might call it.

I’ve felt pleasure, love and bliss

even though it’s rare that I recall it.

I’ve felt joy and lots of pain,

mentally, physically and self inflicted

but from each and every thing I’ve…

So, here we are. It’s a Sunday night and my kid and I are having dinner. I’m enjoying some microwavable yet organic chicken and cilantro sausage, a bowl of left over boiled potatoes and zucchini loaded with Jarlsburg cheese, while my offspring eats Chef Boyardee Mini Ravioli right out of the can, while smoking a cigarette - kind of Currier and Ives, don’t you think? Anyway, we’re looking at Honda engines on his Mac, which is cause for great boredom for me, but great elation for him. And since I’m the mom, if my kid is happy then I’m happy.…

What better way to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the end of Prohibition in America than with a cold beer. That’s exactly what some of the nation’s brewers did last week to mark the end in 1933 of our 14-year failed experiment in enforced sobriety. They had a party.

“April 7th is a day to recognize the past 75 years of beer and the beer community’s contribution to Americans’ quality of life. The explosion of creativity and innovation by those who make beer is an American success story,” said Charlie Papazian, president of the Brewers Association.

Perhaps. But the end of Prohibition…

by Greg W.

I was driving into work today and listening to a guilty pleasure of mine Howard Stern. They had Jeff Conway on from Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew and laughing about his detox experience from the show. They would play clips of his audio and how much pain he was in. Of course all the characters on the show were cracking up and laughing about how foolish he sounded, but all I could feel is sympathy for how sick he is and the realization that he is probably going to die from this disease. It upsets me that the…

Over the weekend I finished up the second draft of my second, very short book, working title: God Is. Now What? One of my main points is that we cannot use religion or spiritual practice to hide from reality; in other words, we have to live in the real world, exactly as it really is and learn to handle all the ambivalence, indecision that reality produces inside us–not to mention anxiety, confusion and down-right fear. Faith, in other words, is not about us feeling comfortable–it’s about us doing what we can that’s actually helpful.

Back to my foxes. Molly’s comment about…

A colleague took pictures, and I thought it would be nice to post them since I’d written about them. Aren’t they something magical to have show up outside one’s office window? We’ve been debating whether or not we should feed them. Any thoughts would be welcome.

I had to give a talk last night in a town where I lived when both my drinking and my head were beginning to go bad. It’s a place that I cannot drive through without finding off a sense of hovering unease.

But it was also while I was living in this town that I made the switch from television to radio, and so “came home” professionally. It’s where I was when I first began freelancing for NPR–long before I knew what I was doing, of course, but I wasn’t about to let that stop me. Lack of chutzpah has never…

I almost never have time alone at home. Charlie doesn’t work and he’s a real homebody, so he’s usually in our house whenever I am. I’m alone on the road when I travel, but almost never, ever within the walls of my home. Charlie’s just always around, making me laugh, keeping me company helping me out…telling me how to boil water, feed the cat, organize the kitchen cupboards. Charlie, you see, is a bit of a hoverer.

Well, Charlie spent all of last weekend away, helping his brothers and sisters sort through my beloved mother-in-law Lola’s stuff in order get her…

My work office is in a small city of maybe 45,000 people. I’ve written before, I think, about the scraggly lawn outside my window that’s backed by scraggly woods. Charlie installed a bird feeder for me, and I also sprinkle food directly on the grass and dirt for birds who prefer to ground feed. I can have a couple of dozen birds at a time, along with a half-dozen squirrels and a bunny or two. Once I had two deer. Now I seem to have attracted a pair of gray foxes.

They are healthy looking animals–sharp-faced, bright-eyed, about as big as…

Employers soon may have to start providing employees with equal coverage for mental and physical health care if a mental health parity bill is signed into law. And while many business groups endorse the basic concept, many say they are concerned about the legislation’s potential impact on health care cost and coverage.

Lawmakers currently are hammering out a compromise proposal on mental health parity legislation that would marry elements of House and Senate bills (S. 558, H.R. 1424). If passed, the legislation would expand the Mental Health Parity Act of 1996 and require employers to offer employees the same level of…

Greg W. is twenty-four year-old in recovery from drugs and alcohol since July 15^th, 2001. In his six years of continuous sobriety he has become a public advocate for addiction recovery. With a degree in Media Production from Quinnipiac University he has combined his interests to create compelling video documentaries of other young people in recovery. His company, 4^th Dimension Productions, has goals to create powerful and inspiring resources for other young people. Through these videos and advocacy work with Connecticut Turning to Families, Greg believes that the current youth of Connecticut will soon begin to normalize sobriety at young ages, and have…

I had to go to traffic court last week.

Way back when, on Virginia primary day, I had to drive all over this part of the state, visiting polling places and reporting live from them. The day was a nasty and cold day, with wet, spitting snow. Charlie, who worries, sent me off in his Toyota truck with 4-wheel drive. (As an aside, he and I are an interesting study in contrasts–I’m the original yee-hah girl, he is Mr. Caution. It makes us very good for each other. He keeps me from spiraling off into outer space on a whim; I…

By James W.

Posture and Pretense
fade fast away -
Garments of fog
in the heat of the day.

Don’t leave me imprisoned
by the chains of approval.
Help me delight
in the pain of removal.

Each minute that passes
less becomes more.
Each waterfall crisis
splashes joy on my shore.

Kiss me with laughter
as all around me they dance;
the children of freedom
rejoice in romance.

Life… life
I’m living it now.
Blooming inside me. -
I don’t have to know how.

If you’re like most people who learn that a family member has cancer or another life-threatening illness, you instinctively react with compassion, a desire to help and support. But more often than not, family members don’t know what to do when their loved one is struggling with alcoholism or drug dependence. Some of them even go so far as to feel guilty or shameful about trying to help that person.

Dear Mr. Moyers: I am throwing everything else on the line right now because I don’t know what else to do. My father, 50, is a successful attorney in Indiana. He…

Grace is a real trickster. When we’re least expecting it, it comes pouring down on us like hot fudge on a soup bowl full of Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey ice cream (my personal favorite). The warmth of its flow is just the right temperature, softening the delicious, but still frozen form below to a perfect blend of cool and smooth, so that the body can experience pure ecstasy when spoon and tongue meet. Last Sunday Grace delivered such a Sundae (pun intended) to me and the experience still lingers as if the bowl is still half full.

I have two…

On vacation with my family this week in Florida, I am reminded of the never-ending debate about drinking and young people.

It’s spring break, and this annual migration of teenagers and college students to warmer climes, mostly without a parent or teacher escort anywhere in sight, highlights the role alcohol plays in defining good times and bad on these trips.

At 2 a.m. in the hallways of a hotel near the Fort Myers airport, roving knots of young men and women with half-empty 12-packs of beer seem intent on making sure they aren’t the only ones who stay awake all night. If…

Forty years ago, my husband, Charlie, was at a Jimmie Hendrix concert in Hampton, Virginia. It was supposed to be the first of two that evening, but the second one was canceled because Martin Luther King had been assassinated.

I was living in Houston, Texas, around Rice University. I didn’t know anyone who wasn’t stunned and didn’t grieve and didn’t feel that the world was sadly diminished when Dr. King was shot. I suppose there were plenty of people who did not feel that way, but fortunately I didn’t have to know them.

I’ve read several enormous biographies of Dr. King. He…

This poem was written by my sponsor, Lee Ann K. as a gift to me. She takes 12 step meetings to our local jail every Tuesday. I love you, Lee Ann.
Ginger B.

Tuesday Nights in Jail

By LeeAnn K.

She told me
How the trustee loves the dandelion.
Now I cannot dig them out
From my little bed.
How can I know what will answer
Another woman’s prayer?

Today, inside the garden,
I wanted to bruise the hyacinths into my skin
So that the scent would follow me
Where the air is not permitted to circulate
And all is unlovely, thrown out, locked up and told
How much they cost.

All habits die hard deaths.
The…

In March, 2007, HBO presented the series “Addiction”, which covered the topic of substance abuse from A to Z, showing 13 installments over a 4 day period. The premier held in Richmond, Virginia, was filmed by The Second Road and the following are interviews with audience members after viewing the first installment in the series.

Thanks so much for the help. This is fun! I found the rules and here they are:
1. The rules of the game get posted at the beginning.
2. Each player answers the questions about themselves.
3. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

1) What was I doing 10 yrs ago?

I was living in a trailer in the woods in Amherst County, Virginia, working in a co-curricular life at a woman’s…